


Good Out Here

by twelvicity (Rii)



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Belonging, Character Study, Gen, Guilt, Prose Poem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-09
Updated: 2016-11-09
Packaged: 2018-08-30 00:51:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8512450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rii/pseuds/twelvicity
Summary: A thousand words behind an answer.  Taako looks back at how far he's come.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is sort of a free-form character study that happened when [Pati C](http://twitter.com/rah_ciach) put out an open call for sad Adventure Zone headcanons. The fact that it's exactly one thousand words is a happy accident.

"Nah, auntie, I’m good out here.”

He said, watching that ancient woman with arms like tree branches chopping vegetables.

(For a mother wasting away.)

(And he never knew his father.)

“I’m good out here, thanks.”

He said, to that same woman, whose strength was failing, whose words were whispers.

(Who ate his food - and yet, did not recover.)

(Food couldn’t help the hopeless.  He learned that early.)

“I’m good out here.”

He told the elders, who had no place for him in New Elfington, whose pity was hollow and plastic.

(He had no further ties to The People, they said.)

(And who could truly confirm what his father was?)

“I’m good out here, sir.”

He said to the caravan-owner.  He clutched his own bowl of stew, then, cooked for a single-serving, only sure of his meager skill for magic.

“It’s all good out here!” 

He said, he boasted, with the flashier cantrips, with the prestidigitations and all their false dangers.

“It’s  _ all  _ good here!”

His voice like a song when people started asking for him to cook.  His magic made salt into sweet, made sour into savory.

(Food, with magic, helped the hopeless.)

(Maybe?)

“I’m good here, thanks!”

When the earnest half-orc first joined the crew, with no skills, beyond pounding tent-poles, beyond throwing out the too-earnest.

“Taako’s good, right?”

He said to Sazed, half-drunk one night, contemplating their future.

(Not futures, separately.)

(Future.)

“It’s all good out here!”

Words that started becoming a catchphrase.  Words that would catch cheers at the end of each performance.

(And such warm words from Sazed.)

(Warm arms.)

“And just remember - Taako’s good out here!”

An actual catchphrase.  There was talk of t-shirts, of glyphs and brands.

“Nah, I’m good.  Thanks, though.”

The last words, before the final show.

“But, I… I thought I was… everything was…”

(Good.)

(Before Sazed.)

(Though it took years and a chalice to reach that point.)

“I’m good out here, thanks.”

The most familiar refrain, on the streets, in the gutters.

Rejected food and offers of mercy.

(He hardly dared to try and make anything he touched better.)

“I’m good.  It’s fine.”

Words, half-remembered, when some stranger with coin passed by.

(A stranger faded with memory.  Red clung to it - red cloth, maybe, but nothing more.)

He woke in a tavern near a human and a dwarf and a promise of money to be made.

“Whatever, dudes.  I don’t care.”

His words were polished with a performance he hadn’t rehearsed.

The role felt easy on him, regardless.  He had no costume, no script, and yet.

“I’m still chilling out here, if anyone’s curious.”

No matter how slippery the words, he still.

“Hail and well met!”

Seemed to find a place.

Neither of them could speak the languages he spoke, which was a given, but.

“Don’t worry about Taako!”

Some things never seemed to change.

“Taako, you good?”

(Magnus and his voice like wood shavings.)

And yet.

“What’s up with Taako?  Tell me what’s up with Taako.”

(Merle and his sun-scarred cheeks and smile.)

He wasn’t accustomed to people asking about him.

People asking if he was well, was happy.

(Was alive.)

“So, what’s good, Taako?”

Magnus asked, on the moon.  A neutral question.

“Same old, same old.”

(Which wasn’t a lie.)

“Well, let me know if you need anything, okay?  Last mission was pretty weird.”

(This was - unusual.)

(Magnus’s warmth was - something for a stage, for a show, for a-)

“You okay, there, Taako?”

Merle.  Taako had expected such shows from him, given his occupation, but-

“You seem kind of spooked from what went on, earlier.”

(Merle had lost his arm to wood and magic and the uncertain.)

(What was it with wood and elders, always following him around?)

“Nah, I was good.”

(Taako said.)

(Taako’s good out here, he said.)

(A shield from his lips, hardened through many variations.  Almost a reflex, now.)

“Well… you need to talk, I’m here. S’my job, anyways.”

Merle’s faith slid against Taako’s thoughts like an apple peel against a knife.  Present, but never in a substantial way.

Though, there had been that business with the crystals.  He had seen that.

And, for a time, Taako could survive on that.  The pay he received on trinkets and baubles and Robbie’s supply was enough.

Then-

That Chalice.

Sazed, holding the arsenic.

When he came back from all that, he existed in a thick expanse of nothing.  A hear-nothing, see-nothing, saturated with only his own guilt.

(Taako was good but-)

(-had he asked if others felt the same about him?)

And others asked the same.

(But never him.  He feared the answer.)

He deflected.  He listened to the replies of Magnus, of Merle, and calculated accordingly.

But, eventually-

-the Nothing ended.

He got by with his usual bluster, his growing skill, but something felt hollow.

And it was the touch of a cold and hollow hand that made him speak.

Kravitz and his admittedly fine features had barely crossed Taako’s mind, in the whole ordeal of effects.  They’d been quite overshadowed by death threats and purple worms and all other manner of dangers that had come around since he found himself in this nonsense.

(Though it was not unfamiliar danger, or recklessness.)

(He recalled some adventures that seemed outright suicidal, that he joined, if only to prove something.)

(That his magic was worthless.  Destructive, at best.)

(But it always filled a need.)

(Defying his mind and his senses.)

Kravitz was the one that actually asked him the question:

“Why aren’t you doing a - a safer career?”

And the answer came so naturally, then, with clay on his hands and the weight of his entire experience on his shoulders.

“Because I’m worried no one else will have me.”

(There was no use for a gangly bastard boy in the place where he was born.)

(There was no use for a cook whose food was poison.)

(But there was a use for reckless and explosive magic:)

(Adventure.)

(After all, if you’re a failure - just fuck it, right?)

  
  



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